Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey all, I'm back.

I'm still working through some leftover projects. First up, I finished the second Straken jungle tank. I added an exposed crewman to this one. He's giving the classic "WTF" hand and arm signal.



I've got one more tank to finish - I think I'm going to assemble it in walker mode for variety's sake.

Next, I received the general for my newest project (the Army of Light). He's a Kingdom of Death model, and the sculpt is incredible. I searched for more than a week to find a model that represented what I was looking for, and this guy fit the bill with minimal modification (I cut off the brazier he was carrying, changed the way his arms are posed, and put together a spear).

The trick has been producing the effect I want while working with a very limited pallet. I haven't decided whether to go with NMM for the gold or metallic, but I'm leaning toward the former. The belt buckle is already done up that way, and I think the contrast looks good with the white on white skin & clothes. (Edit: after more thought, I may scrap the gold for silver. We'll see) I'm shooting for an alabaster skin tone by the way - I want the list to look inhumanly pure. Any advice anyone has on achieving this is welcome.

Here's the current WIP pics of the Archangel Gibreel:




Next time I'll include a model for scale.

Any feedback is welcome. He's going to set the tone for the whole army.

Dan

I finished up the Archangel Gibreel last night. All that's left is the base - I'm still trying to decide what the theme is going to be.

The lighting is a little odd, but I think the coloration comes though well enough.




We'll see where the army goes from here.

Dan

It took some digging.

The metal slugs were these guys:
http://www.hobbyfan.com/product_info.php?products_id=11838
With a bit of looking, they turn up for not-outrageous prices on ebay. (30 bucks or so) They're actually called "super vehicle 001" models, which should help.

Tragically, the warthogs don't seem to be around any more. I got them off Amazon for a few dollars, then they seemed to vanish. Maybe forgeworld had the manufacturers assassinated for making an alternate taurus that cost about 15% of the real thing?

Hope it helps,

Dan

Metal slug was a staple of my childhood too man - truly the king of the 2d shooters.

After looking at the Archangel for a while, I decided I didn't like the gold much. The warm colors just don't work with the Army pallet I have in mind.

Consequently, he's bee reworked. Here he is, base and all:




As you can see, his base is circle-within-square to accommodate his participation in battle wherever it may lay in the stream of time. Being a cheap person, I'm going to have this army pull double duty in both Warhammer systems!

I'm much happier with the way he looks now - the way is paved to start the rest of the list.

Dan

I'm glad you like him - I agree on the cooler colors. The yellow-gold didn't look right.

Somebody through in an old LOTR building kit that's going to be cannibalized for the Army's bases - expect more Tolkienesque ruins.

As promised, here's a scale pic so you can gauge the size of the model.


More to follow,

Dan

Thanks to the faux-hurricane that's cooking up in the gulf, I got the day off work - which means I was able to allocate a bit more time painting today than usual. Combined with the recent arrival of my Sedition Wars Bio-hazard models, this led to a productive afternoon.

First up, here are the finished chaos dwarves that have been lurking in the top of my workstation for almost a year.
As usual, I'm happiest with my sculpting work right about the time I'm finished with the project, so these guys are the best looking in the army. I guess (as in life) somebody has to be the rear-ranker.




Next, I finished up 5 of the wolves for my Sylvan army. These guys will be warhounds in a beastmen army, mournfangs in the ogre incarnation, or some sort of hound of Orion in the wood elf version. They were a simple enough project - nothing too remarkable here.


I also knocked out a test model for an upcoming monsters of the north army - a rock troll. I think I'm going to use a little less blue in the shading on the rest of his amigos.



Finally, I have a couple of the bio-hazard models finished up. As with the others, I really like what Studio McVey did with these guys, although it's pretty fiddly working with 28mm true scale kid-sized models.
I really like the aphid suit, and I might try to pick up a few more for the Catachan army when I get a chance - I can't see a pop culture reference somewhere without trying to fit it into the ole' 187th somewhere.

Oh, and I don't know about you all, but I can't even look at the Dr. Ridley model without feeling a bit of loathing for Paul Reiser in my belly.





That's all for now, more to follow!

Dan

Thanks man! And here I thought my thread was getting a little schizophrenic.

The chaos dwarves are tough. I wanted to use a dark, simple pallet, but it's hard to do that and still have the army "pop" on the table. Even their gigantic warmachines look a bit drab. I guess that's just life.

The sylvans on the other hand have plenty of "pop" - I'm really happy with the way the army looks on the table. I'm sure it's out of vogue, but the color scheme draws heavily on WoW for influence. There's some weird stuff in the night elf kingdoms that looks really good in spite of its apparently gaudy color scheme.

I'll settle down on an army sooner or later, but for now, the schizophrenia will continue until my back-log is cleared out.

Dan

The Biohazard miniatures keep coming - today I finished up another 4 or 5 of the space-faring lads & lasses.

First up, a terrorist leader, a smuggler, and Vin Diesel:


Next, a crazy kid in a dress, a hot mechanic, and another shot of Sigourney Weaver:


And finally, Commander Black in a suit of Gnosis armor:


In spite of the mixed press and the rocky start, I really enjoy the game. The revised rules have made it much more playable, and the active/reflex turn sequence keeps the game moving and the atmosphere tense (as it should be). My kids get downright emotional when their soldiers get infected with nano and zombified.

Anyway, more to follow - I'm working on finishing up some Space Wolf terminators that have been moping on the back shelf of the paint cabinet for quite some time.

Dan

Thanks for the compliments, I'm glad you like my work.

Vin doesn't scale well with the Catachan models. They're heroic scale, so the heads and hands are substantially larger than Vin's are. I'll post a pic when I get a chance.

The non-human sedition wars range (the strain) does okay though - the zombies look great next to guardsmen and space marines.

And being a dad is easy - I sub-lease my kids to the local Nike factory during painting hours. Free time for dad and 6 cents an hour (per kid) toward my hobbies! Seriously though, I've subtly (or not subtly if you ask my wife) brain-washed them to love wargaming over the years. They paint & game along with me & at least the oldest one is getting alright at it. Nerds in training!

More to follow,

Dan

So, like all hobbyists, I've got the desire to paint a titan. In many ways this not-so-miniature miniature is the magnum opus of any modeler/gamer's career - it's a gigantic centerpiece to any gaming event, as well as a huge project in its own right.

For me, being a fantasy player, this has always been a sticky issue. Sure, I've done up a Forgeworld fire dragon, but that's not really on the same scale as a titan. My warhammer shelf needs something bigger.

With that in mind, I'm going to build a to-scale model of Krakanrok the black, father of the dragon ogres. According to the Archaon story, he was mistaken for a mountain at one point, so I think he'll be suitably big.

I've found a good base model, waited 6 months on back order for production, and now it's time to start.

Without further ado, here's a pic of one of his weapons - just to give you a sense of the scale I'm talking about.


This slayer, as you might imagine, has bitten off a bit more than he can chew. I'll use him for scale throughout the build.

More to follow as the model starts coming together! I hope you're as excited as I am.

Dan

Here's a second shot of the big guy - I've cleaned and assembled the basic body, and I'm now ready to start working on exterior detail and the arms. It's hard to capture the scale of this guy - I need to post him next to a set of castle walls. He could quite easily peer down into a city during a siege.




One of the few details we know about Krakanrock is that he has claws the size of warhorses. I think this guy fits the bill.

More to come!

Dan

He's a sculpt made by a guy named pkking - an obscure (in the US) but amazingly talented guy out of China. It took some digging to link up with him to buy a copy, but once I saw a picture of the model, I got the fever...

Anyway, I've decided to work a fluff theme into the model, as befits a sculpt of his stature.

"Worshiped by the beasts of the north as a god in his own right, Krakanrock the black is a being of monumental power and hubris. This is reflected, in part, by the gem, parchments, and skull adorning his chest. As has been written, he was the principle signatory of the contract made between the dragon ogre race and the chaos gods. So powerful was Krakanrock, and so strong his bargaining position, that he may be the only being alive to have ever dictate terms to the four powers. At his insistence, the contract was written on the flayed hide of the mightiest daemon prince present, the arch-fiend Xzar-cha'ruuk. The demon's soul was then imprisoned in an enormous soul stone, and set into Krakanrock's chest. Krakanrock then took the skull and contracts, and hung them along side the gem as an eternal demonstration of the dragon ogre's might. He wears them still, and it is said that as long as the gem remains in his possession, Krakanrock is truly immortal. Some sages question whether a being of his power would be immortal without the gem as well, but such matters are best left to the philosophers, as no living being will ever see his end."

Here are the pics of the progress:




As you can see, a star dragon had an unfortunate run in with the big guy.

More to follow,

Dan

Thanks man - the aphid suit is a sedition wars model. It's the closest rendition of the "Aliens" power loader I've found, and thus it rocks.

I've been out of town for a few weeks, but there's been some painting done in the down time - here are the latest completed/in progress models.

First up, here are the orcs from my copy of Warhammer Quest. I've been slowly painting up the set over the last few years. Eventually it'll be done, God willing, but in the mean time, here are the boyz in green:


And here are some more shots of Krakanrock - he's going to have black skin and bronze armor. Obviously there's ton more work to do - expect to see lots more pics of him along the way.





And here's my newest project - a Farsight Enclaves army. I used the proceeds from a recent army sale to put together a pile of them. Here are the first pics:

My Commander - obviously based heavily off the Farsight sculpt. This model is my favorite battlesuit in the line, and I didn't want to do much to it. I'm going to swap the sword for a fusion blade, and magnetize his other weapon, but otherwise he's staying largely as is. I'm still working on perfecting the engine glow - I'd like to add a bit of OSL, but with such a bright pallet, I don't know if it's going to look right. There'll be a bit of weathering as well, but that's till in the future.




And here are a few WIPs of the first riptide and the first 3 battlesuits:



That's all for today - obviously there are a lot of irons in the fire, but I guess I like it that way. More to come - C&C welcome.

Dan

I spent the weekend finishing up my crisis suit commander and a riptide for the Enclaves.

I decided to go with a heavily weathered look, and an alien theme for the bases. Given that the whole army is going to be suited up, I don't have to worry about them surviving in a strange environment. I think the purple, blue and teal static grass sets off the red armor nicely.

Here's the Commander - name TBD. I decided to go with a light saber sort of look for the fusion blades, while maintaining the basic twin-linked design. You probably can't tell from the pics, but I magnetized both of the shoulder hard points with nails (great, cheap way to magnetize btw) and his under arm weapon on the shield side with a magnet. He's ready to be equipped with just about anything!




Here's the first riptide. The loss of resolution during the upload didn't do the stippled blast damage much justice, but you get the gist of it.




With the entire army numbering less than 30 models, it's fun to get to devote a good amount of time to each guy - I'm working on finishing up the first 3 crisis suits now.

More to come!

Dan

I finished up three more suits today.

After finally buying and reading the Farsight Codex, I've been working on the theme of the list. It's going to be Crisis Reaction Force Omega 9, the quick reaction element of one of the larger cadres. The Force, as with most of the Farsight Enclaves forces, consists of a relatively small number of warriors outfitted in with mostly experimental and customized battle suits. Each of the teams has a designated role - the models depicted here represent team Gamma. Their primary task is strongpoint defense and objective security, with a secondary task of light vehicle destruction.

Here is Team Gamma - all armed with 2 missile pods.





I'm enjoying working on these guys - the basic suit looks crappy unaltered, but with a little love (and hands) they look pretty good.

C&C welcome,

Dan

Happy thanksgiving to all you Americans out there - I got a bit of work done last night on a pair of broadside suits for the Enclaves.

The broadside kit is incredible by the way - it's exactly what the crisis kit should be some day. I wanted to have the versatility to use either the missile system or the rail rifle on my suits, but I don't like the look of the stock missile arms. Hence, the following mod:



I'm particularly happy with the pose of the guy on the left. He's got a good C-grip on his rifle, a nice low shooting stance, and his rifle's at depressed muzzle. In short, he's ready to smoke something.

As has been said by others before, the hands really change the feel of the suits - they're a welcome addition.

More to come,

Dan

Merry Christmas all!

Thanks to Christmas break, I've gotten to finish up a couple of projects that have been on the back burner.

First priority for leave was finishing up a bit of World Eaters stuff I had laying around in preparation for a tournament this weekend.

First, the helldrake. I like the rules (as does any CSM player with any sense), but I don't care for the model very much. I get that they wanted it to be a corrupted fighter, but the execution looks awkward to me. I wanted something more daemonic and alive looking. After raiding the bits box, I came up with this:




I like the look of this guy much better. I wanted to capture the bird-of-prey look to show him in the middle of a vector strike on some hapless infantry guy.

Next up I finished up a land raider:



I picked this one up on ebay. It was 90% assembled with a pile of forgeworld parts, so it was relatively easy to finish touching up and paint.

The army's ready to roll this weekend! I'll be taking:
Kharn
Hellbrute w/ plasma cannon
1 Mutilator (khorne)
1 Mutilator (khorne)
9 berzerkers
8 CSM (khorne, bolter + ccw/pistol, plasma gun)
8 CSM (khorne, bolter + ccw/pistol, plasma gun)
1 maulerfiend w/ lasher tentacles
1 land raider
1 helldrake

1 bloodthirster
10 bloodletters
8 flesh hounds

It's got everything the internet hates - we'll see how she does!

Anyway, that's all for today. Once I'm done prepping for the tournament, I'm switching back to finishing up the tau.

And in January - the Tyranids will be swarming my way. I want to start a nidzilla list with the new codex - we'll see what the rules support!

Hasta luego,

Dan

Thanks for the holiday well-wishing. It's my favorite time of the year for sure.

With all the extra time available, I finally finished up an old project - Warhammer Quest!

Here's the completed set in all its finally painted glory:










A few of the pictures aren't quite as clear as I'd like - taking them at night results in crappy light - but it's nice to have this long standing project wrapped up! Sadly, I think she's going to be sold after a few games - I just don't have the room I'd like to store old gaming stuff - but it was nice to close the door on an enjoyable chapter of gaming history.

More to come,

Dan

Oh but they are! I grant that I didn't paint them too glamorously, but they're all based gray and drybrushed twice with all the skulls picked out, washed and highlighted. Maybe they aren't the sexiest doorways a dungeon keeper ever installed, but hopefully they keep the place together well enough.

Thanks for the feedback - working with retro stuff is fun sometimes.

Dan

I'm back on the tau now. I decided to revamp the look of the finished riptide & add a bit more to the next one. Here's what I've got so far:



The shield is scratch built out of plasticard with a few bits added to church it up a bit. The broadsides still need to be weathered. I'll add better pics tomorrow when I get a bit more done.

Let me know what you think,

Dan

Thanks. Why the hell would a suit with the size and the strength of a riptide carry a buckler? It's not as though the riptide needs to sneak through small tunnels or maintain it's dexterity in a fencing match. It didn't make sense to me, so it got a shield that's reasonable for the size and power of the suit.

Let's not kid ourselves, the tau are anime inspired. I figured I'd roll with it rather than trying to figure out how to fit them into the grimdark future.

Alright, so after a bit of a hiatus from photographing stuff, here are final (weathered) shots of a large portion of the tau army:









You can see the exposed magnets on the end of a few of the suits' weapons. They're all designed for easy weapon swaps.

I did a lot of work reposing and modding up the second riptide so they wouldn't look too similar. My intent is that every suit in the army be an individual, to represent the generally individualistic attitude of the Enclaves (relatively anyway).

The army is almost complete. I've got a R'vanrna riptide basecoated on the desk that should be finished up in a few days. It took a lot of work to make that awful head bearable! After that, there are only 6 more suits, an aegis line (still haven't decided which way to go with this one), and a few sentry turrets and the list will be finished. It's pretty refreshing to paint up a list that only requires 30 or so models total.

Let me know what you think,

Dan

Hey all. Thanks to the winter weather, I got a few days off work and got a good bit of painting and modeling done.

First up, here's some work on the Wolf King's boys. I've got 10 Cataphracti, 10 tartarus, and 10 standard terminators planned for a drop pod wolf wing army (30k style). These guys are great fun to work on. The mixture of old, new and chaos bits yields some really awesome looking dudes. I don't know how viable the all terminator army's going to be on the table, but I guess I don't really care. I want the guys to be completely finished before FW releases the Prospero Burns book & models (and Russ himself I hope!) so I can get it on the table as soon as the book's released.

Here are a few of the "There are no Wolves on Fenris" lads:






Next up, I finished up the R'varna suit (minus a few details and a wash on the grass) and a few more crisis suits. This army is about finished, with all assembly complete and only 6 suits to paint. Now if only I can manage to wrap it up before I get hopelessly distracted with the Wolves.

The weird drones are going to count as crisis suits with 2 launchers. They're about the same size, and I'm tired of building suits! I figure the 3rd guy in the squad is a smarty-pants scientist with a few cutting edge ideas on drone construction.

The sentry towers were just too awesome looking to pass on, so I bought 2 to count as quad cannons for my aegis line.









And that's about it for the day. Let me know what you think & feel free to toss any ideas on how to improve the wolfguard my way!


Dan

The tau are complete, so between finishing them up and picking back up the sons of Russ, I'm painting up a soul grinder for the World Eaters.

In continuing with the Battle of Skalathrax theme, he's in the process of dismembering an Emperor's Children dreadnaught. Serves him right for wearing pink! In the grim darkness of the far future, there is no breast cancer awareness.

Here are the WIP shots:





There's more work to be done before he gets painted (to include mold line removal - fear not!). I'll keep you posted.

Dan

So it seems I've been a terrible slacker at getting any pictures taken or posted lately. As a citizen of the modern age, I believe it is appropriate for me to blame this on the universe at large and accept no personal responsibility for my actions (or lack thereof).

Having said that, here are the finished pics of the soul grinder I started on before business took me out of town:




As you can see, he's wrenched the arm off an Emperor's Children dreadnaught - Khorne has no truck with that Nancy lot. I've got the rest of the dread assembled for scenic purposes, but he's not finished yet. He's dread-locked up to match the theme of the rest of the big demons in the list. As it turns out, Khorne's got a thing for Caribbean hair styles.

Next up, I've made more progress on the Space Wolves.

I've wickered down the era I'm working on. This Company will be the Wolves' 1st Company during the age of the Horus Heresy, and it'll be led by the senior commander of the legion (Logan stand in). As we all know, Wolves don't have the sense to wear helmets and have a fondness for wolf pelts. Consequently, all of my lads will be dressed accordingly. I really like the FW heresy era terminator suits. Both are incredibly detailed, with the Cataphractii suits looking the grooviest in my opinion, although they are (by design I suppose) not very dynamic. I've re-listed the pod and Contemptor pattern dreadnaught as I've added rune work and etching to the models to bring them in line with the free hand on the rest of the guys. Here are the models:










And finally, in a flash of inspiration, I've decided on the theme for the next army. I've always had a fondness for the deathskulls and their looting skills, and I believe the pinnacle of that art is the looted tyranid.

My army will be based around a tribe working under the Overfiend of Octarius. The boss is one of the rare and wonderful boyz that not only manifests the skills of a mek, but also those of a painboy. Using his wellspring of orky know-whats, he's looted the corpse of the swarmlord itself, discovered how to replicate the hive mind's control over lesser 'nids (albeit over a shorter range), and gotten his boys to work on lootin' and herdin' up an army of bugs.

Here's the first few boyz, including the PainMek himself:






The shields aren't attached to the tyrant guard being the two beefed up nobz in the phots) yet, so you'll have to use your imaginations a bit.

I'm stoked to get a new project underway, and to get the last of the Wolves finished (22 down, 10 to go!)

Let me know what you think,

Dan

I finally finished up all the Wolves - only 3 drop pods to go and the army will be complete.

Here are the pics of the various squads. I put some work into improving the photo quality - hopefully it paid off:

First up is the Commander of first Company (Logan Grimnir counts as) with 4 of his angriest amigos.


And here are the other squads:







And here's a clearer pick of the Dread with his ride:




There's fluff to come - today's focus was just on finishing up the basing.

All the green-stuffing was fun. I think the mix of the three armor types looks pretty good - it's not hard for me to imagine the wolves mixing and matching their gear, and I can't imagine an old wolf giving up his trusty suit of cataphractii pattern armor just because something new came out.

Hope you enjoy!

Dan

Sure thing man - let me get a few together.

Dan

Enigma: Thanks man. The key to the broadside conversions (and most of the other suit conversions) was the 1/100 mechanical hands I found on Hobby link Japan's site. They're really easy to manipulate (once you get them put together - Japanese people must have tiny, nimble hands) and bring the models to life.

The rest of the conversion is just reposing the base models and working a few head swaps, although I did cut all their weapons in half and insert magnets to enable me to swap them for missile launchers instead. If you've got any more specific questions, I'll be glad to answer them.

Dan